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“As far as the operator is concerned, they’ve just answered the call, but potentially vital seconds or even minutes have been saved in getting a clear picture of the whole situation.” Evans concludes: “Other sources of information are also being merged into the mix now as well – such as the video already mentioned – though it’s important that issues of information overload are taken into account. “Incoming SMS messages are also starting to be integrated as well, while it’s also possible to easily convert text instructions into speech to send to responders who many have their eyes and hands busy on other tasks.” Flexibility, interoperability Legacy issues are also highlighted by Cassidian Communications’ general manager, David Warren: “There are huge differences between different countries in the ways in which they fund and structure their emergency call centres and this obviously has a major impact on how the supporting systems are designed and how they interoperate. There are over four thousand 911 centres in North America, for example, while some European countries have taken a much more centralized route. “Customers are, however, sending back some very clear messages about what they want from their systems. Firstly, the systems and technologies that they use have to be far more open and interoperable. Secondly, the graphic user interfaces and applications employed by the decision-makers and dispatchers have to be far more inclusive and able to access more information sources than they were in the past. “In turn, the managers of those systems must be able to easily tailor screens and functions to support specific job roles as requirements change over time. “That implicit flexibility can help both in cost saving and the system and service consolidation needed as we move towards a more dynamic and multi-agency environment and response strategy. It also gives us the ability to keep the familiar ‘look and feel’ of existing interfaces to save on retraining and incrementally introduce new functions.” Connected devices Warren also believes that the ubiquitous nature of IP and the emergence of more and more connected devices in homes, offices and public places can bring huge benefits to many emergency service functions. “Imagine”, he says, “a silent alarm comes from a shop. That’s automatically cross-related to the IP address of a CCTV camera in the shop or mall. The dispatcher can take control of that camera remotely, zoom in, capture the thief’s image and instantly forward it to the nearest police unit.” This theme of the potential of Internet technologies to drive integration – at an affordable cost – is expanded upon by Steve Jennings (executive director of Strategic Industries – Public Safety and Smart Communities) at Alcatel-Lucent. Having been chief information officer for Harris County, Texas – one of the largest counties in the US – Jennings had to deal with a number of major natural disasters during his tenure and he believes that the old silo mentality in public safety has to come down. “Things used to be pretty black-and-white in the old days in terms of responsibilities and boundaries”, he says. “Solutions now not only have to be multi-technology – they’re also have to be multi-functional, multi-agency and increasingly multi-jurisdictional in a globalized world. Traditional divides between public and private networks are rapidly closing as we evolve to use LTE, WiMAX, broadband video and the Internet, extracting value and functionality where we can. “This will, however, means adding in specialist expertise on top of these to ensure that things like encryption and reliability are enforced, or that metadata disciplines can be applied to support the fast searching and sharing of information sources like video clips. In some situations there will also be the wider legal environment to consider where captured data is involved in court cases.” ‘Never forget the users’ While companies like the ones quoted above are deeply involved in taking the next steps to open the bandwidth right across the public safety value action and decision chain, co-ordination is also increasingly happening at national and international levels. Europe, for example, has been running the €14 million Emergency Support System research project (www.ess-project.eu) for the past two years, bringing together partners from multiple disciplines to resolve both the technical and cognitive problems involved in major crises and speed decision making. While we focus on making technology more useful to the end-users confronting criminals or fighting fires or in the command and control centre, it’s also important to realize what the final goal of all this work should be. As Airwave’s Evans eloquently sums up, “If you’re talking about the emergency services, we should never forget that the ultimate end-users are ourselves and our friends, families and communities.”
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